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New Change in Panama Tourist Visa Law - Tourist Visas were granted for 90 days generally speaking before May 20th, 2007. Now the tourist visa is given for 30 days with the possibility to get a one-time extension for an additional 60 days. These extensions are not automatic and are directed towards people staying for tourist purposes. With the one time extension one can still get the 90 days as before.
Below follows an English translation of the relevant law, which is Number 1 of Article 1 of Decree Law 16 of 1960:
'Those foreigners who enter the national territory classified as tourists, transients, travelers in transit, or travelers in direct transit, temporary visitors and immigrants: 1. Those who arrive with the exclusive purpose of recreation or tourism are tourists for thirty days, which can be extended for up to sixty days.'
Discussion – It appears that Panama is trying to tighten down laws to control people from other countries doing things they do not like such as dealing with narcotics. Panama has trouble with neighboring countries that produce and distribute drugs. The law does not state visa times in a country specific manner, which could have been one way they could have altered things. This makes one think they considered the people from the USA, Canada, UK, Spain and Australia and decided to restrict those tourist visas as well. The next conclusion is that they want people from all countries to get into a more permanent program if they wish to live here. There are many options available but none of them are for free unless one marries a national. The lowest price program is the reforestation program that requires an investment of $40,000. A guess would be that Panama is trying to become more economically selective as to who resides here targeting a more financially upscale audience. People would previously come here and stay under a tourist visa and let it expire and pay the fine when departing the country that was generally very low. This is not going to be allowed anymore. Panama wants people to invest money if they want to stay here.
Future Possibilities – One could look for future tightening down of the programs allowing one to get residency in Panama. We cannot say for sure that such a thing will occur but it is a likely event based on this recent change. There are currently 100 residential projects under construction in Panama that are at least 40 stories high with one some 100 stories high. There are at least another 125 getting ready to go into construction. Panama is feeling like they have a boom on their hands and wants to take advantage of it. Our opinion is that at least some of these projects will never complete or even be started. We also feel that after completion many of these projects will fail to sell completely and the people will walk away from their deposits. The prices are way to high. We don’t see this change in the law as helping things out. Many people used to like to know they could come here for a few months at a time and not have to worry about immigration. Now this is gone and it is now a problem for one who wants to just try living here as a renter before they buy. It seems they want only people who can drop substantial sums to live here but none of this will have any effect on Panama as a financial and corporate center.
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